


Ex Memoria Nostra

by local_enginerd



Series: Pharmercy Week 2k16 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_enginerd/pseuds/local_enginerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela Ziegler had every intention of refusing Winston's recall. Until she didn't.</p><p>For the "Old Times" Pharmercy/Rocket Angel week 2k16 prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Memoria Nostra

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t resist Latin and I can’t resist puns. The title basically translates as “From Our Memories”, but the word for memory also translates as “recall”...so it can read as “Out of Our Recall”.

The night air was still, punctuated only with the buzz of the desert’s nocturnal insects. Lights from homes and mosques twinkled below, mirroring the dance of the stars above.

Fareeha Amari put a hand to the visor of her Raptora suit, pulling up the holo-display. She was less than 15 kilometers from her target. At 5 kilometers, she disengaged the suit’s camouflaging, its surface changing from black to blue.

The captain noted the figure on the ledge and adjusted her descent accordingly, the thrusters on her suit obeying her every command. Fareeha cut the engines a few centimeters above the floor and landed gracefully next to a certain Swiss doctor.

Angela Ziegler stood on the balcony of her apartment. She had been staying in Iraq for a less than a week, still adjusting to the heat. She would take the Swiss cold over this desert heat, any day.

It had been twenty-four hours since Winston’s recall went live. Angela had every intention of ignoring the request. _Overwatch fell for a reason and violating the Petras Act would be violating international law._

But minutes after the recall, Angela’s communicator registered another message. Fareeha, stationed in Giza with Helix, had every intention of talking the doctor into rejoining Overwatch. Begrudgingly, Angela agreed to entertain Fareeha.

(She had hoped to talk Fareeha out of the recall, as per Ana’s wishes.)

Even after twenty years, Angela looked as angelic as ever. Little had changed about her, but the same could not be said for the soldier standing before her.

The young girl Angela remembered had disappeared. Fareeha stood tall, even taller than the doctor. As Fareeha unlatched her visor, Angela examined her face. The baby fat in her cheeks that endeared her to so many of the former Overwatch soldiers had given way to a set of strong cheekbones. She had become the spitting image of Ana Amari, save for the Eye of Horus tattoo under the opposite eye.

Fareeha moved to step inside and, with a blush, Angela realized that she had been staring. She quietly followed the soldier into the apartment, eyes trained on the floorboards. _Mein Gott. She wouldn’t notice in the dark, would she?_

Wordlessly, the pair made their way to the kitchen after Fareeha unlatched the Raptora suit. In reconciling the memories of Ana with the Amari before her, Angela remembered the standoffs that Fareeha had with her mother when the latter forbade her from joining the military.

Fareeha, noting the piles of research and Angela’s exhausted state, insisted on making coffee for the two.

Conversation flowed easily between the women, as if the twenty years had never passed. Angela spoke of her time spent traveling around the world, bringing her nanotechnology where it was needed most. She spoke of research and her ambitions. The soldier listened quietly, checking the stove now and then.

As Fareeha poured the coffee into a pair of cups, Angela steeled herself. She mentally rehearsed her refusal.

“ _Merci vilmal_.” She took the cup from Fareeha, fingertips brushing. The doctor took a sip.

_Two sugars and just a dash of cream. Fareeha remembered._

* * *

 

During Overwatch’s heyday, a young Fareeha often spent time at the organization’s Watchpoints, eager to follow in Ana’s footsteps. She had quickly bonded with the soldiers. For many of them, seeing the young girl was a welcome distraction from bloodshed on the front lines. For Fareeha, it was a chance to meet her heroes and she quickly learned all she could from them.

(At some point she had inadvertently memorized all their schedules, meditating with Genji before dawn, watching Jesse on the shooting range at noon, and enjoying peanut butter sandwiches with Winston for lunch.)

Little Fareeha had particularly enjoyed spending time with _Khalu Reinhardt_ , who never failed to entertain with his tales of dragons and knights. The crusader had often enlisted Fareeha to surprise a certain Swiss doctor with coffee when she became cooped up in the medbay for too long.

Angela always took her coffee with two sugars and a bit of cream, but she had never questioned how Fareeha learned her order.

(Fareeha had asked everyone on base, even Athena, for good measure.)

* * *

 

“Doctor Ziegler, I know how you felt about the old Overwatch,” Fareeha began softly. She paused and cleared her throat. “But the world needs us. The world needs _you_. We have a chance to make up for the mistakes of the past.”

Angela blinked owlishly, scattering the memories.

“For old times’ sake?” Fareeha had set her own cup of coffee aside. She looked at Angela with an expression she couldn’t refuse.

**Author's Note:**

> Mein Gott = “Oh my God”; German.  
> Merci vilmal = “Thank you”; Swiss German  
> Khalu = “Uncle”; Egyptian Arabic.  
> Also, if I remember correctly, the Recall short showed Angela in Iraq at the time of Winston’s message.


End file.
